Why Authors Don’t Write Book Reviews by Nadine Brandes. Funny how I seem to be finding so many posts about this topic recently. And even though I personally have found a way of writing negative reviews that I do feel is right for me--even though posting them makes me kinda nervous sometimes (but how often is the right thing completely comfortable I ask you?)--I did think this was an interesting viewpoint on the subject.

And that’s it for this week! Do you or a relative suffer from Just Another Chapter syndrome? What’s your favorite (or least favorite) season? Read any interesting books this week? Can’t wait to hear from you all, and I will see you in the comment section!

5:31 PM

Hey all! I was tagged for The Power of Words tag by the illustrious Liz from Out of Coffee, Out of Mind ! Thanks so much, Liz! ...

3. Add a typography/word-related question of your own for those tagged to answer.

4. Tag six or more bloggers and let them know. (hahahahha)

5. Include these rules in your post.

Look at that, I’ve already done two out of three. I am so on top of things.

What is your favorite letter of the alphabet?

Ehh...I don’t really have one anymore. In elementary school, my favorites were C, J, and M (though I have absolutely no idea why, as only my last name has anything to do with any of those letters). But right now... I don’t know, I kinda feel like all letters are created equal. We could say “A,” though, if you like.

Three Words You Love?

Chocolate. Star Wars. (Kidding, not kidding.)

Three Words You Hate?

It’s Quiet Uptown.

If you were to create a word, what would it be and what would it describe?

Ugh, I know I did this once—maybe even twice—but I can’t remember it! Ugh. Well, for now, I’ll just go with voicey: a description for a book whose narrative is chockful of cheek, sarcasm, and/or that character’s unique voice.

Bonus Question: If you could change the way one word sounded, which would it be and how would it sound?

“Genre.” I would change it so it would be okay for Americans to pronounce it in American instead of French, lol.

Bonus Question: Do you know of a word that looks better than it sounds?

Umm... no, can’t really think of one. Apologies.

Heather’s Question: What are three words you mispronounced when you first said them aloud because you’d only ever read them before?

STORY TIME!

So my mom is always laughing at me me and my sister (who reads more than enough to start her own book blog), because we are constantly pronouncing words wrong because we’ve only ever read them before and we say them in a way that sounds logical to us... but apparently isn’t to other people. Anyways. Since you asked specifically for three: Chiron, Elongated, Hermione (I’m still not sure how to pronounce that last one, because honestly, I don’t think I even tried. Just kinda stamped her face in my head whenever her name came up in the book).

And Liz’s Question for her lovely humans: What are three words you used incorrectly in your youth (youth being anywhere from a week to eighty years ago, give or take)?

See, I actually have this horrible fear of using a word incorrectly and looking dumb because of it, so I almost always make sure I know what a word means before I say it or use it in a post or anything. So, even though I probably have done this at some point, I can’t really think of a time right now.

And that’s the tag! For my part, I tagJessi, Shar, Grace, Monica, Ally, and Charisma.Don’t feel obligated if you don’t want to, but if you do here’s the tag! And I actually have two questions for those who choose to do it (and if I didn’t tag you and you want to, feel free), because that is the sort of person I am. Question 1: What are the most powerful words you’ve ever heard? (could be something someone said to you, a word that just sounds powerful, or a short motto that inspires you.) And Question 2: Can you think of a book title that has at least 5 of the words you mentioned throughout your tag? (if you can’t, make up one. I think this’ll be fun.).

Can’t wait to hear from you all and I will see you in the comment section!

6:21 PM

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve done one of these. I hope to get better at that, but honestly... I probably won't. :p On to the p...

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve done one of these. I hope to get better at that, but honestly... I probably won't. :p

Book Review: Me Before You by Jojo Moyes, by Mariella. I haven’t read this book myself, but I’ve heard a lot about over social media. I think Mariella hit the nail on the head though: “Storytellers don’t tell people how to live their lives. They find situations that deserve recognition, packing truth into paperback books.”

Christian YouTubers (2) by Grace. My favorite video is the second one (I relate so hard), but they’re all pretty good, and we can never have too many Christian YouTubers. ;)

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So how do you feel about writing and reading negative reviews? Do you draw or do any other kind of art? HOW PATRIOTIC DO YOU FEEL AFTER READING THE HAMILTON POST, YES?! Hehe, can’t wait to hear from you all, and I’ll see you in the comment section!

9:00 AM

Original Photo from Pixabay One of the number one tips people give beginning bloggers is to be consistent with their blog posts. I me...

One of the number one tips people give beginning bloggers is to be consistent with their blog posts. I mean, I’ve probably said it. If you want to build a big audience and be one of those “top bloggers,” it’s a necessity. Your people, or your prospective people, should know what to expect from you when; plus, the more posts you have out there, the more leads you have for people to come back and find you. And if they find one post they like, then discover that you’re posting every Monday, Thursday, Saturday, or what-have-you, they’re way more likely to hit that follow button and eagerly await your next piece.

Unfortunately though, even with all that in its favor, consistency is about to go out the window for me.

As I was saying last week, one of the most important things you’ll ever decide about your creative journey--whether that’s blogging, writing, art, whatever--is what your focus is, what you actually want to be doing. I want to write... but books, not just a blog. I mean, I love blogging. Actually, I adoreit. Like, this is so nerdy, but I have the most fantastic thrill getting a great post idea, knowing that I polished the concept well, finally discovering that perfect picture to go along with what I think is a brilliant post (true, there’s sometimes pain in the process, but once I get it posted, it’s almost always a great feeling). What’s more, at this point in my life, I’m not even stressed about blogging. Right now, it’s some of the most fun for me that it’s ever been and I don’t want to give that up... but I recently realized that if I want to actually make time for my manuscripts (and an editing business I want to start), I have to subtract time from something and blogging is one of the few things that isn’t a necessity for me.

Now this isn’t to say that I won’t be around--I will--or even that I’m taking another break--I’m not. All I’m dropping is what I mentioned at the beginning of the post: consistency. Whenever I can, I’ll still get posts up; I’ll still be doing book reviews on Verbosity, and I’ll definitely still be around to comment on all of your blogs. I’m just no longer sticking to a schedule of Mondays and Thursdays on Summer Snowflakes and, more than likely, I won’t be getting up more than one post a week (not including POTW on Saturdays; that’ll still happen).

To be perfectly clear, I don’t subscribe to the view that every word written on your blog is one taken away from your manuscript. But. For me, blogging, and all that comes with it, has been eating up my time as of late. And if I’d decided to switch focus and become a blogger rather than an author, that would be 100% okay. But because I want to be an author, I’ve decided to step back, take some time, and focus on my actual book-writing.

To all of you who’ve been reading for a while, I’m sorry that my blog kinda keeps changing. I guess, referring back to the title, it’s because I really don’t know. What I’m doing with this blog and online stuff, I mean. Maybe it’s because I’m 18 and I’m still trying to “find myself,” maybe it’s just the sort of person I am, maybe it’s a part of the creative process and figuring out where you fit... I don’t know. But anyways, I thought it only fair to let you all know that posts may be somewhat infrequent in the future, but I love this blog way too much to drop it completely. I love you all, you guys are awesome, you’ve been amazingly supportive throughout, well, me being me, and I hope to see you next time. :)

7:16 PM

So... I’ve fallen in love with Hamilton. Again. Also, three of the main cast members left Saturday night . Cry with me. So I’ve alr...

So I’ve already talked about That Would Be Enough (which is still my absolute favorite song in the entire show), but I desperately needed to post about Hamilton because I desperately needed somebody to feel with me because I have re-fallen-in-love at exactly the wrong time. I’m telling you, I have actually cried more times this weekend than I probably have all year (mostly because I don’t cry at all ever--except, apparently, where Hamilton is concerned). Not even kidding. I literally have all the emotions and no outlet and I really don’t know what to say to end this post because frankly I’m a mess.

Here, let’s all listen to It’s Quiet Uptown together (but only if you’ve actually listened to the entire musical. Otherwise... major spoilers).

If you love Hamilton, feel this pain with me and let us hum the heartbreaking tunes as one over the blogosphere. If you don’t love Hamilton... well, one, please get saved. Two, what’s a book/movie/show/anything-else-you’d-like-to-tell-me-about that ripped out your heart and tore you apart, yet was still so spectacularly magnificent that it forced you to go around shoving it in everyone’s faces with your mangled heart still hanging out of your chest by fragments of its shredded tendons (graphic, I know, but I did say I was a mess ;) ). Can't wait to hear from you guys, and I'll see you in the comment section!

6:24 PM

Hey guys! Hope everyone had an awesome Independence Day Weekend! Mine was pretty chill, just me and my family hanging out at the house; I r...

Hey guys! Hope everyone had an awesome Independence Day Weekend! Mine was pretty chill, just me and my family hanging out at the house; I read a lot and listened to Hamilton a lot, which is of course the most patriotic thing any young American could be doing on this the 240th birthday of our nation.

But anyways. To the point of this post, I mentioned last week that I was attending an online book summit, which is why I had my two brilliant guest posters Ryebrynn and Victoria come and talk about book reviewing and micro-editing respectively. And now that the summit is over, I’m here to report back on my 4 biggest takeaways from my first-ever online book and business summit.

1. Know Your Focus

This might seem obvious to other people, but my biggest takeaway from the summit was that I really needed to have a stronger focus in regards to what my writing and my presence online--particularly Summer Snowflakes. I mean, I love doing movie reviews, talking about music, and all the other random stuff I do on here that have absolutely nothing to do with writing, but I originally set out to talk about books and--believe it or not--politics. Obviously, I lost sight of that focus as I tried out other ideas, and that’s actually not a bad thing, if those experiments lead me to what I actually want to do--for instance, I have realized that I do not want to talk about politics. But if those rabbit trails lead you away from your focus, then it could be time to readjust a bit and make sure you’re actually going in a direction that’s going to get you where you want to be.

To be clear though, I’m probably not going to stop talking about music or movies or all that other stuff. It’s too much fun, and honestly, I’m just blogging because I love it. <3

2. Know Yourself

This one kinda ties in with the first one, and maybe it should’ve come first because knowing yourself and what you want is what’s really going to define your focus, but whatever. The point is you have to know yourself and where you want to be, because when you set out to do something like write a book or start a blog or anything creative like that, you’re going to get a lot of advice from other people. Whether you go and research it, you ask those you know, or you just happen to be meandering through the blogosphere and stumble across a post like this ;) , you’re going to find a lot of different tips from a lot of different people, and a lot of it is going to conflict. And I mean all of the advice is good (well, most of it. Obviously, check your sources, lol), but they’re tailored to different people, lifestyles, and goals, so you have to know yourself and where you want to be before you can go around doing what everybody tells you. What worked for them might not work for you because you’re not even trying to get to the same place where they are. It’s like someone giving you directions to Chipotle when you wanna go to Arby’s. You’ll get to Chipotle, but that’s not what you wanted to eat in the first place.

3. You Don’t Have to WAIT Until You’re An “Expert”

This very well may be some of the most valuable advice I’ve ever gotten, not just for writing but for life. For example, you guys may have noticed that, unlike most bloggers, I almostneverdo advice posts and the reason for that is that I’m not published and I’m not famous. Nothing I’m doing has proven to work so Who Am I To give advice on how to do this writing and blogging thing? I generally only offer tips when someone asks for them and even then with a self-deprecating and (I think) funny disclaimer.

But what the host of the summit, Jesse Krieger, kept saying was that your focus shouldn’t be “Who Am I To?” but “Who Can I Help?” Because even though I’m not an expert at writing or blogging, even though I’m not published and I don’t have anywhere close to 100 or 1000 subscribers, there are still things that I can do, knowledge I’ve garnered that might be of assistance to someone else. So, the question shouldn’t be “Who Am I To offer advice?” but “Who am I to hold back if this could help someone else?”

4. Start Failing ASAP.

This one is kinda self-explanatory if you've read a lot of posts like this before, but I thought it was really good and really funny because basically what the speaker, Chandler Bolt, was saying was, “You’re going to be uncomfortable and you’re going to fail, but the failure is what makes you a success. So get out there and start failing ASAP.”

If that doesn’t inspire you to get out and fall flat on your face, I don’t know what will. ;)

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So have you ever been to an online summit or any other book/writing conference? What are some of the biggest takeaways you remember? Can’t wait to hear from you all and I’ll see you in the comment section! :D

Hiya!

Alexandria, better known as Alex or Alexa, is a strange Christian-fangirl-YA-writer medley tucked away in an undisclosed location in Virginia. She loves creating worlds out of keystrokes, discovering adorable ships (platonic or romantic), and becoming besties with clever characters who wow her with smarts and sass.